Swiftly

May 16, 1986

COLUMNIST Douglas Pike says the Palestinians deserve a homeland.

The problem could be solved swiftly if the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs recognized Israel's right to exist in peace. The Palestinian Arab refugees then could be resettled among their own people, as they should have been long ago, in the vast Arab lands that extend over 5 million square miles.

To say a solution to the Palestinian Arab question would bring Middle East peace is ludicrous. The Iran-Iraq war, Shiite insurgency in the Persian Gulf, Libyan troublemaking in Sudan, Egypt, and Chad, conflict between Morocco and Algeria, and instability in some countries have no relationship to the Arab-Israel conflict.